British agent Joseph Rearden (Paul Newman) meets his superior MacKintosh and Mrs Smith who direct him to steal diamonds from mysterious mail deliveries. He gets arrested after an anonymous tip and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He joins Slade, a KGB mole in British intelligence, in a prison escape. They are drugged and brought to a vast secret organization. Meanwhile, politician Sir George Wheeler (James Mason) rails against the government and MacKintosh informs him of infiltrating the escape organization.The first act is rather stale. John Huston directs the material in a standard manner. The trial is boring. It would have worked much better to start with Newman arriving in prison. His intelligence background should be revealed much later as a shocking twist. The pacing and plotting is rather slow and methodical. It is competently made and it has the great Paul Newman. It's well into the second half when they finally have a car chase. Otherwise, the drama is rather limited.

Paul Newman is the hero in this 1973 British espionage thriller. He is Rearden, an undercover agent who goes from one ID to another, with appropriate accent changes. The movie doesn't a have large cast, but all are very good in their roles. Dominique Sand is one of the main players, Mrs. Smith (code name for the daughter of Mackintosh). James Mason is Sir George Wheeler. Harry Andrews is Mackintosh. Michael Hordern is Mr. Brown. One gets a sense of the cloak and dagger early on. And, one can guess that if Newman and Andrews characters are the good guys, this is another one of those James Mason roles as culprit. Other than that, the story has some good intrigue, with modest action and some chase scenes. The ending is a surprise. The movie is based on a 1971 Novel by Desmond Bagley, "The Freedom Trap." This is the only film success of his four novels that were made into moves. The movie has some nice scenic shots of sites in Europe. It was filmed in Ireland, Malta, London and Liverpool. "The MacKintosh Man" is a fun mystery that most should enjoy.

John Huston directed this little-seen thriller that stars Paul Newman as Joseph Reardon, a member of British Intelligence sent on an undercover mission by his boss Mr. Mackintosh(played by Harry Andrews) in a prison where he is given a fictitious criminal background in order to infiltrate a criminal gang where the leaders are imprisoned. He assists in their eventual escape which leads from Ireland to Malta. His contact(played by Dominique Sanda) is a beautiful but aloof woman who has her own personal reasons for the assignment, which includes a Parliament member(played by James Mason) who isn't what he pretends to be... OK espionage thriller with good cast and direction, though the plot does seem overly complicated at times.

***SPOILERS*** Given the assignment by his boss code name Makintosh, Harry Andrews,to go undercover as a convicted mail thief British secret agent Joseph Rearden, Paul Newman, gets himself arrested after mugging a mailman of a package containing 140,000 pound sterling in cut diamonds.Given a 20 year sentence by the courts Rearden is now in position to get in close with convicted communist spy Slade, Ian Banner, who's serving life and find out about the spy ring he's involved in Great Britain and who's the Mr. Big that's running it. It doesn't take long for Rearden to contact a Mr. Brown, Michael Hordern, an inmate at the prison who sets up an elaborate escape plan for both him and Slade to crash out of the joint. What in fact Rearden doesn't quite know is that Slade's outside contacts are wise to him in knowing that he in fact is not a career criminal but an impostor and are ready, after he's in their custody, to beat the truth out of Rearden even if it ends up killing him! ***SPOILERS*** As things soon turn out the very person who can verify that Rearden is in fact working undercover for the British I5, or intelligence department, Makintosh gets run over and later dies from his injuries! This leaves Rearden out in the cold as a convicted criminal on the run from the police as well as the Soviet spy ring that's determent to silence him.The film has Rearden get involved with his contact on the outside Mrs. Smith, Dominique Sanda, who as it turns out is the late Mr. Mackintosh's daughter as well as a member of the British I5.***MAJOR SPOILER*** As for the person who's in fact is running the spy ring he turns out to be a 25 year member of the British Parliment who's about as anti-communist as well super patriotic as one can get; Dubbed by the British press as "Mr. Law and Order" himself Sir George Wheeler played by James, no relations to Perry, Mason! With Wheeler knowing that Rearden is in fact an undercover British Agent makes things even worse for him and Mrs.Smith then they already are! That's until the very end of the film when the tables are turned and the person who has the most to lose in both Wheeler and Slade ending up free turns on them! With fatal results!P.S Paul Newman plays it real cool as undercover British Agent Joseph Rearden and shows off his ability behind the wheel or a car in one of the most bizarre car chases in movie history across the Irish countryside. The car chase finally ends up with the Soviet Agents chasing him crashing off a 200 foot cliff and into the Irish Sea. Newman also shows us what a great swimmer he is in doing in what looked like without a stunt double, at at age 47, all his underwater stunts with his suit tie and shoes on! This was such an amazing aquatic feat on Newman's part that I don't doubt for a moment that even the great Johnny "Tarzan" Weissmuller would have found difficult to duplicate!